Posted By Laura in Featured, For Teens, Gift Inspo, In the Home, Sales & Discounts, Technology for baffled parents | 5 comments

You may of course own a Gamer Teen like me – one who has been wailing for months that she neeeeds a new PC (but seriously – where are you going to PUT one?). Or your teen (and you) may think Steam is simply what makes creases come out of clothes (and concentrated-chicken-poo-dog-sick come out of the carpet…).
Either way, they Need A Gaming Laptop. So we need to make a few things clear.

Firstly – Gen Z teens NEED a computer of their own. With my rarely-seen serious parent head on, it’s genuinely not about needing to play stupidly violent games, nor is it about checking their six social media streams 60 times an hour (Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr… and that’s just the ones I can remember…). As the generation who grew up with the internet, technology is critical to their future success – it’s a vital enabler in moving forwards, through school, college Uni and into the workplace.
And they need their own digital space as much as you and I needed our own notebooks and fountain pen (if anyone touched my fountain pen I stabbed them with it. True fact*).

Not every teen has the luxury of private study space – many of them share the kitchen table for homework room, and often a bedroom with a sibling. Having their own desktop PC is a brilliant solution – but not always a practical one in terms of space. And if the machine is to last, it’s not necessarily the best idea when they ship off to Uni to be toting the PC and monitor under one arm
A laptop is a far more flexible solution, making even their bed a perfectly organised private workspace for them in an instant.

I think most of us parents see the genuine practicality of a laptop – especially where space is a premium. But a gaming laptop seems a step too far, doesn’t it? When a gamer teen begs for one, you’ll likely nod sagely and say “Ye-e–es… and back in the real world, you’ll be needing a laptop that’ll manage your Photography A Level needs…”

Because laptops aren’t the best. Are they? The price you pay for the luxury of portability is in the performance. And the.. er.. price. You can reliably get a desktop with the same spec as a laptop for half the price, right?
Well.. wrong, actually.
Because obviously technology has moved on. Got smaller. Faster. And laptops are now such well-designed, slick and sleek pieces of kit that they’re a proper, decent alternative when a desktop isn’t practical. The new tech breakthroughs mean the old bugbears of gaming laptops from years gone by like “they run hot” or “they are much slower than desktops” simply aren’t true anymore. And of course there’s the misconception that gaming laptops are massive bricks; even if you want a big screen, ASUS’s incredible RoG STRIX GL702 is under 25mm thick with the lid closed.

And whether you own a gamer or a non-gamer, a gaming laptop is the perfect PC for your teen.

Because Gamers as a community are very demanding – if a machine is designed for them, it won’t be the kind that frustrates you at its lack of ports, tediously slow workrate, horrible lag, or poor internet connection options.

A laptop that is designed with the gamer in mind simply has to perform to play demanding top game titles – talk to any gamer about their machine, and they’ll tell you about their graphics card. And any teen is going to find themselves editing videos for YouTube, arranging complex Powerpoints or working on large poster graphics during their studies at some point. Having that graphics card power will dramatically decrease the amount of stress involved in these tasks – even a very basic gaming laptop will be a gallop faster than the ones on the shelf in the high street PC store.

And let’s not forget the powerful processors, the masses of memory required to work with those awesome graphics cards, and a speedy hard drive for a rapid workrate.

The other thing that gamers get right (and Ordinary Joe user doesn’t think about) is the cooling. Ever tried using your laptop for a few hours on a hot day? Did it give up and sigh sadly at you? Or maybe you’ve run it on your lap for a while? Legs burning at the memory? Yes – they get proper hot! Cooling systems in gaming laptops are designed to run for long periods of time at full load – they just handle the heat better.

The outstanding benefit for a parent taking the plunge is that you’re buying a laptop that is far more capable than a simple off-the-shelf model. Which always makes sense with technology – you buy the very best that you can, to allow it to last for as long as possible.

Laptop providers will usually have a specific range for these most demanding of their customers (take a look at our fave ASUS and their gaming laptop range – we rarely recommend anyone go anywhere else, to be honest). Because they know they have to fill two briefs in one machine for the gaming laptops – they needed first and foremost for the laptop to work as a study horse. When it’s the parents who foot the bill, the sales pitch needs to be more than ‘it plays CS:GO with zero lag‘, doesn’t it? It needs to be a practical laptop for GCSE’s, A-Levels, College & Uni – running work applications fast and smooth, tough enough to withstand constant travel on the bus, and slender enough to fit into a rucksack.
But obviously it also has to have the ability to play PC games at a level of quality capable of exceeding the “next generation” consoles…

 * Not quite true fact. I wanted to stab them. What I actually did was growl, demand it back and punish them by looking very severely at them for a few hours.

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